January 05, 2012

Kicking Off the New Year With Subaru

The world of Subaru ranges widely, as do the venues in which you find its vehicles. For instance, through January 14, a rally-prepared Forester like none you've likely seen before is plying its way along South America's west coast in the company of dozens of other cars as well as motorcycles and trucks. It's competing in the Dakar Rally -- one of the most difficult two weeks of racing possible. This rally gets its name from the African city in Senegal, which used to be the destination for the racers from Paris and other locations in Europe. The rally was moved to South America for safety reasons.

Learn more about the rough-and-tumble Dakar Rally on its website, and find photos of the competitors under the "Galleries" tab. One image of the #369 Subaru Forester is photo 9 of 37 in Stage 4. It's beautiful!

In addition, you can track the progress of the #369 Forester (driver Francisco Jose Garcia) from here.

On the other side of performance spectrum is the Subaru BRZ, which was designed to be a light, fun-to-drive sports car with an extremely low center of gravity. Already introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show in early December, it's going to be shown at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which begins for the automotive press on Monday, January 9. See the news release here. (The Japanese version of the BRZ is shown.)

Check out the show itself here, and watch this Editor's Track Journal for more about the BRZ at the show.